| Notes: | Imprint from colophon.
Reprint of the 1557 edition; see Tinto.
BM STC Italian identifies Cristoforo Armeno as translat.
Signatures: *⁸ A-K⁸ L⁴.
Leaf *8 is blank.
Woodcuts: Tramezzino's Sibylla device, portraying her standing, and holding a book in her right hand, with printer's motto on three sides: "Qual piu fermo è il mio foglio è il mio presagio"; ornamental initials; head-piece.
Text printed in italic type.
Dedicatory preface by translator Cristoforo Armeno is addresssed to Marc'Antonio Giustiniano, and dated Aug. 1, 1557.
Includes printing privileges issued by Pope Julius III, dated Oct. 23, 1550, and the Senate of Venice, dated June 25, 1557.
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| Summary: | Collection of popular "Persian" fables, combining the taste for exotic settings nurtured by the Jesuit letter books with the mid 16th-century Venetian penchant for novelistic romance; the Peregrinaggio is, according to Donald Lach, the "most fascinating" example of this new genre. Since readers could not always distinguish between fact and fiction regarding distant places, collections of tales like this one were as influential in determining the European image of the East as factual histories. Reprinted many times and translated into French, German, and English, the Peregrinaggio was influential well into the 18th century when Horace Walpole read it and introduced the word "serendipity" into the English language. Peregrinaggio recounts the adventures of three princes--the sharp-witted sons of the king of "Serendippo"--Which form the framework for seven novellas contained therein. The folk material is of Indian as well as Persian origin, and includes familiar motifs of magic mirror, laughing statue, one-eyed camel, and magic hand. "Serendippo" may have been so named not only for its exoticism, but also to celebrate the topical news of Ceylon's conversion to Christianity in 1552. See Donald Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965-1993), v. II, Book 2, p. 211-213; and Theodore G. Remer, Serendipity and the Three Princes (Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1965).
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